Interview with Richard Morgan

Q: Black Man/Thirteen has a lot of very powerful things to say about the development of American society over the next century. How did you go about deciding to what extent the USA would 'fall' as it were, and what parts of the country would go in each direction (the South into religious fundamentalism, the North into international cooperation etc)?

Well, I owe the initial inspiration to the "Jesusland" map that appeared on the internet just after the 2004 Presidential elections. That’s when I first started to give the idea any serious thought. But I think it’s become increasingly clear to everyone over the last couple of decades that there are – at least – two very different Americas out there, and in contrast to the European Union, which seems to be subsuming its cultural and political differences in a general (if somewhat smug) general sense of modernity, these different aspects of America don’t seem to be reconciling at all. If anything, they’re more savagely at each other’s throats than ever. So I found myself wondering how it would play out if that savagery was ever genuinely set loose, and what the geo-political consequences would be.

As to the specifics, it wasn’t hard to draw out the current cultural tendencies and extrapolate. The west coast of America is undoubtedly and increasingly becoming attuned to the economic and ethnic rhythms of the Pacific rim. Attitudes to the environment really are diverging as California’s supposedly Republican governor and various politicians in the north eastern states all begin to address the issue of global warming, while the heartland continues to kick against it. Secessionism is alive and well as a political idea across the Deep South. So-called red states receive more in federal aid than they contribute in tax dollars, and still go on cutting their own throats by supporting anti-government politics. New Orleans dies in the mud like any third world disaster area, New York bounces back from 9/11 as a rallying point for the modern western world. And last year I watched a frightening documentary about a college in the US founded by born-again Christians for the expressed purpose of sending young fundamentalist men and women to Washington in a bid to capture the organs of government, and ultimately the Presidency. So while I don’t necessarily believe that America really will split up as envisaged in the book, I think the cultural fault-lines are there for anyone to see.

Q: Black Man/Thirteen can be seen as many things - allegorical in nature, a political statement, or just a rip-roaring adventure. When you set down to write the book, for what were you aiming and did the target change in the writing?

No, it didn’t. I’ve always felt that as a novelist, your primary function is to entertain, and when I sit down to write, what I’m usually aiming to do is tell a compelling story built around emotionally engaging characters and scenes of high drama. That’s what Black Man was, from the very beginning.

That said, I’d find it almost impossible to write any kind of story if it didn’t have some underlying social and political significance to it, because it just wouldn’t feel realistic. We are social creatures, and politics is simply human behaviour writ large, so it will inevitably inform any realistic narrative. And I’ve never felt that because you’re writing a fast-paced sex-and-violence-driven narrative, you can’t have any kind of intelligent reflection in it. I don’t see any reason why you can’t have your cake and eat it here. Who says you can’t have entertainment that is satisfying both viscerally and intellectually? Why, if you’re an intelligent reader or movie goer, should you have to put up with that kind of polarized approach to story-telling? So yeah, Black Man is and always was intended to offer engagement at all those levels, but equally it will always be up to each individual reader to take what they want from it and leave the rest.